How to onboard employees in 2022 (with examples)

Michael Miliopoulos, Antisel's Director of HR shared with us how he uses Synthesia to develop stellar onboarding experiences for remote employees.

The challenge

With COVID raging in 2021, Michael needed to find a way to provide a good onboarding experience for new remote employees. His goal was to make sure everyone received clear and consistent guidance in the first few weeks at work.

The current onboarding process was mostly a mix of ad hoc zoom calls and emails consisting of PDFs and Powerpoints.

Michael was aware that it lacked a personal touch and was, frankly speaking, boring. He was convinced that personalised video would be the perfect format for welcoming new employees.

But traditional video production was not an option for Michael, it simply had too many limitations:

• Speed: It would take weeks to create a video, considering the amount of preparation needed to record the footage.
• Flexibility: It would be nearly impossible to update the videos once created, and it would take additional time and resources to recreate the videos.
• Scaleability: Without a big budget, it's almost impossible to scale video production.

Michael, however, didn't want to give up his idea. He set out to find a solution that would allow him to create video at scale while making the experience personal and engaging. With Synthesia, he found what he was looking for.

The solution

Michael is now greeting remote new beginners with a series of bite-sized, personalised AI videos, all created with Synthesia.

This is how Michael does it:

1. Michael chose one of Synthesia’s 50+ templates and made it fit Antisel's brand guidelines.
2. He then creates a script for the particular topic he wants to present to the new employee.
3. He translates the script into the language spoken by the new colleague.
4. He inserts his copy into the Synthesia script box.
5. Picks an avatar, adds text, pictures or screen recordings.

and voilà, the video is ready to be sent.

Here is an example of an onboarding video he sent to Christos, a new employee who went through Michael’s updated onboarding process:

Wondering how Christos reacted to his onboarding? He'll tell you himself:

Here's what Micheal appreciates most about Synthesia's service:

• Ease of use: The platform is easy to use and includes all the necessary video editing features to create high-quality training videos without the need for additional tools.
• AI Avatars & Voices: The 140+ diverse stock AI Avatars and 120+ AI voices provide an easy way to create engaging, relatable video content without having to hire actors or record voiceovers.
• Flexibility: once created, a video can be easily updated at any time, without having to start from the beginning.
• Localisation: Synthesia can generate videos with 120+ languages and accents, allowing to reach new countries without leaving the desk.

The results

In just a few months, Michael has transformed the entire onboarding process:

• Great Employee Satisfaction: The new process received a Net Promoter Score of 100 (!) from the 18 new hires who came on board with AI video.
• Time savings: Compared to Antisel's previous onboarding process, Michael and his team save 50% of the time it takes to onboard new hires.
• Onboarding Automation: Michael has created a series of short introductory videos about Antisel's mission, vision, and core values, as well as a series of videos that walk new employees through their first week.
• Award winning: For his innovative approach to onboarding new employees, Michael and his team received several awards for best employee experience and most innovative use of technology in HR.

“Synthesia helps me ensure the message I communicate has close to a 100% success rate. It’s easy to use, cost-efficient, and saves me precious time. It’s like having a whole video production studio, but in a browser.” - Micheal Miliopoulos, Director of HR at Antisel

In the future, Michael plans to expand the use of Synthesia as part of Antisel's learning and development programs. He plans to develop micro-learning courses for each business unit and translate them for each local market.